Our Better Angels: The Lincoln Within by Rev. Mary McKinnon Ganz, February 8, 2009

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Our Better Angels: The Lincoln Within," by Rev. Mary McKinnon Ganz, February 8, 2009

Reading: From Lincoln's Address to Congress, one month before signing the Emancipation Proclamation

I trust that in view of the great responsibility resting upon me, you will perceive no want of respect yourselves, in any undue earnestness I may seem to display.

The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country.

Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation. We say we are for the Union. The world will not forget that we say this. We know how to save the Union. The world knows we do know how to save it. We -- even we here -- hold the power, and bear the responsibility. In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free -- honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.

Sermon:

We are approaching the Big 200 –--the 200th birthdays of Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln -- this Thursday, Feb. 12. These men, born the same day in 1809, have attained iconic stature in history, particularly for us, as Unitarian Universalists, because they stand firmly in the humanist tradition. Two weeks ago Rev. Michael preached about Darwin; this week I take on the subject of Lincoln. I do so with fear and trembling; even the great American playwright Tony Kushner, who is collaborating with Steven Spielberg on a film about Lincoln, said Old Abe is “”the most terrifying subject [he] can imagine.”

And not because there isn’t enough material -- there are 14,000 biographies of Lincoln to choose from. But as Henry Louis Gates says in a wonderful documentary to be aired on PBS this Wednesday, every age has to find its own Lincoln, and every age will take what it needs from Lincoln’s life and legacy.

And what an age we are in! These are the words of the Rev. Jacqui Lewis, pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City: “In the context of our current shifting reality, … the whole world holds her breath and watches as America tries a bold new thing in terms of race relations.” This month we celebrate African American History, as we have in other Februaries, but this year the proclamation is issued by President Barack Obama, a man whose father, in his words, would not have been served in a Washington restaurant. Echoing Lincoln, as he often does, Obama invites us to “examine the evolution of our country and how African Americans helped draw us ever closer to becoming a more perfect union.” The proclamation continues, “The narrative of the African American pursuit of full citizenship with all of the rights and privileges afforded others in this country is also the story of a maturing young Nation.”

That story intersects profoundly with Lincoln’s, and prompts the question: What do we need, in this new age, from the legacy of Lincoln?

Henry Louis Gates, the renowned Harvard scholar of African American history and culture, chose to go “Looking for Lincoln” because he needed to know the truth about this man whom he had been taught as a schoolchild to revere as the Great Emancipator. The Lincoln myth has not escaped deconstruction, and rightly so: he was a human, not a God, and he was limited as are all of us by his time, his upbringing, his view of the world. Among the stunningly beautiful writings that call us to the better angels of our nature, are passages that are at best paternalistic and at worst, frankly racist. His contemporary, Frederick Douglass, who was born into slavery, escaped to freedom and became a powerful spokesman not only for abolition but for the inherent worth and dignity of every person, once called Lincoln “a genuine representative of American prejudice.” Even the stirring words that Sean read, that address delivered just a month before Emancipation was proclaimed, those words were not appealing for the same Emancipation Lincoln eventually ordered. No, the way which Lincoln said was “plain, peaceful, generous, just -- a way which … God must forever bless” – the way he so fervently pressed on his listeners in Congress – was for a compensated abolition – paying the southern slaveowners for giving up their human property – and, at the same time, colonization – sending the purchased slaves away to Liberia or to Latin America.

And yet, when he did act, it was a far bolder stroke – no compensation for slaveowners, no provision to send African Americans who had built this country with their own uncompensated toil to live in some other land. In signing the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863, Lincoln said, “I never, in my life, felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper. If my name ever goes into history it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.”

A remarkable conversion. Lincoln had believed, all along, that slavery was wrong, but he had also believed that it would inevitably die out on its own, and for much of his career he was content to let it die that natural death, even if it took a hundred years.

This was an opinion that represented what Frederick Douglass called Lincoln’s habit of “slothful deliberation.”

Lincoln had always defined himself, politically, against slavery, but barely. Perhaps it was politically shrewd to position himself as the less radical antislavery choice than his rivals for the Republican party nomination for president. Or perhaps it was Lincoln’s secular philosophy that held him back, for a long time, from advocating Abolition.

Abolitionists like Frederick Douglass based their case on what they called a higher law, or natural law, that all are equal in the sight of God. Lincoln feared this way of thinking would lead to anarchy, since anyone could claim to be on the side of God. God’s will being inscrutable, Lincoln turned to a human document, the Constitution of the United States, for ultimate authority in political matters, and his reading of the Constitution was that the federal government could not do away with slavery.

But Lincoln was famously a compromiser and a pragmatist, and when Abolition became a military necessity, he looked for another authority. He found it in the words of the Declaration of Independence, which he began to regard, in place of the Constitution, as the nation’s founding document. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” This is the creed that 45 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. challenged the nation to live up to.

It is fascinating to watch the movement of Lincoln’s mind, as we can piece it together from the historical record, from appeaser of the Slave Power to Abolitionist to a man who, just before his untimely death, began to press Congress to grant black men the vote – putting him, for the first time, way out in front of most of his advisers, and earning the lifelong admiration of his former critic, Frederick Douglass. Lincoln remade himself time and again as circumstances and his own heart dictated. Path led to path, and unlike the narrator in the Robert Frost poem sung for us by the choir today, he never looked back with a sigh of regret.

What are the lessons for us today? Who is Lincoln for this age? What can he teach us as religious liberals, and as the Unitarian Universalist Church of Arlington, Virginia – this church which for 60 years has been the pre-eminent liberal religious voice in Arlington, this church which stood with people of color as they integrated schools 50 years ago this month?

For Lincoln to act, freedom had to become more than an abstraction.

We have in this church a Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Team, charged with leading us to full freedom and inclusiveness as we embrace our multicultural future as a congregation. You may be aware that last week the Journey Toward Wholeness team made a statement. They told us that loved and valued members of our congregation are feeling unseen, unheard, pushed to the margins.

I have heard many of you thank them for speaking up. And I have heard some of you say that this statement made you feel bad -- feel that are accused of something, and you don’t know exactly what, nor what it is you can do to fix it.

Let me say this: you are entitled to your feelings of course, but nobody wants you to feel bad. Nobody wants people of color in this congregation to feel marginalized either. We all need to open our ears and listen to each other better, really listen, listen until this multicultural moment, this shifting reality, this bold new thing, becomes real in our hearts, becomes more than an abstraction.

In the coming months you will be hearing about an effort to rebuild our church as a culture that is more relational and less bureaucratic. Quoting Board Chair Tom O’Reilly, we’ll figure out what that means as we go. It may sound uncomfortable and vague, but remember: Lincoln didn’t know what emancipation was until less than a month before he made it happen. He had to sit with all his conflicting voices until he heard most clearly the call of the path he and the country were to take. Life is like that a lot, in my experience, and church life is especially like that, because we are committed to walking together in the ways of love and we don’t always know how. We have to approach one another with loving curiosity, invite the conversation, and forgive one another when we misstep. It isn’t efficient, but it is real.

I invite you to find out more about what it means to be a relational church by visiting the VOICE table in Fellowship Hall after the service. I also invite you to engage members of the Journey Toward Wholeness Transformation Team in a conversation about our multicultural future, and I especially invite you to join us – all three ministers, our director of creative arts, and the JTW team – at a conference in New York City in April at Middle Collegiate Church, where we will study what it means to be truly and joyously multicultural. JTW has a table in Fellowship Hall too, and you can pick up information about the conference there.

This is what we can do to further the work of emancipation in the life of this church. This is what we can do to seize this moment in our history, to continue the work Martin Luther King called us to, to live into the creed of this nation. Like the end of slavery, it will not happen on its own; the post-racial future we yearn for will not just come unless we do the work of inclusion.

One of the things I personally love about Lincoln is the way he worked with the craft of language. As he was writing his first Inaugural address, Lincoln’s rival and Secretary of State, William H. Seward, brought him a draft that called upon “the guardian angel of the nation.” But Lincoln saw goodness as inherent in our nature as a people, not coming down to guide us like angels from above. Though the states of the deep south had already seceded and the horrific war was about to begin, Lincoln articulated his leaderly confidence that this nation would again achieve greatness in liberty and in union. He picked up the rhythm of Seward’s phrase, but radically recast its meaning: “the guardian angel of the nation” became “the better angels of our nature.”

One more word about this. When Lincoln breathed his last, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton famously said, “Now he belongs to the ages.” It turns out that there’s some controversy about that. Some historians believe Stanton actually said, “Now he belongs to the angels,” a statement which doesn’t have that ring of history, and would have been forgotten by the next day if people hadn’t heard it wrong. But maybe Lincoln does belong to the angels – those very angels he called us to as a people, the better angels of our nature, our indwelling sense of what it means to live an ethical life. As we lay claim to the opportunities that are before us, as a nation, as individuals, and especially as the beloved community we are building within and beyond the walls of this church, may those angels be our guide.

 BENEDICTION

The whole world holds her breath. What will we do together, this nation, in this moment in history? Could there be a better place to start from, than here, in this church? Listen to one another. Listen to the better angels of our nature. Go forth and build the beloved community. AMEN.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr. on Sen. Obama's Speech on race

Trailer for PBS Lincoln Documentary